Stop ability to clear Internet history ? 1

[PaulMThomas]

A member of staff is concerned that there kids are clearing there internet history on there home PC (XP Home).

Is there any way to stop them being able to clear the Internet History ?

 

[cyberspace]

In XP under users, set the kids to limited users, perhaps that will work?

There will certainly be third party software to allow this.

'When all else fails.......read the manual'

 

[PaulMThomas]

Normally in XP, you can only see your own Internet History - even as an Administrator.
I suspect that this will mean that users will still be able to clear there own history. (Even with limited access rights)

 

[tfg13]

I have a better solution for you. Take a look at this thread:

thread931-925100

 

[Rick998]

You could prevent IE's Options from showing the General tab. Note that this is a 'per user' setting, not system-wide.

Copy the following into Notepad and save it as amend-ie-options.reg. Just double-click on the reg file and choose to import the settings. You may need to close and re-open IE for the change to take effect. The next time Internet Explorer's Options are opened, the 'General' tab will have disappeared.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel]
"ProgramsTab"=dword:00000000
"ContentTab"=dword:00000000
"GeneralTab"=dword:00000001
"ConnectionsTab"=dword:00000000
"AdvancedTab"=dword:00000000
"SecurityTab"=dword:00000000
"PrivacyTab"=dword:00000000

Note that the setting for 'GeneralTab' ends in 1, i.e. switched off. Change it so it ends in 0 to get the tab back or use the following, saved as 'remove-ie-options-restrictions.reg':

REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel]

This will delete the restrictions. You will definitely need to close and re-open IE for the change to take effect.

Note that if you change the first reg file so all the settings end in 1 then IE's Options won't open at all... the user will just get a message informing them that an Administrator has disabled it.

Hope this helps...

 

[tfg13]

I agree that you could very well disable the option to go to the General page, however, there are still ways to delete the history/temporary internet files. If you really want to see what individuals are looking at, look at the above mentioned thread. You will be surprised at what it will find.

 

[Rick998]

tfg13,

My suggestion was what I use at work as a deterrent. It's certainly not fool-proof.

You're quite right about Vengy's excellent script. I've used both it and the equally excellent freeware Index.dat Suite (

http://support.it-mate.co.uk/?mode=Products&p=index.datsuite)

to show some of our users the errors of their browsing habits <grin>.

Rick

 

[tfg13]

I had not seen the index.dat suite before. Thank you for the link!

I agree that it would work as a deterrent, but you know kids. Block a way to do something, and they'll just learn another way to do it.

 

[DTSMAN]

This may or may not be an idea. Write a batch file that copies it to a folder that only you are aware of and put it in scheduler to fire every 5 minutes.

Bo

Kentucky phone support-
"Mash the Kentrol key and hit scape."

 

[drew1701d]

download IEAK, a free microsoft IE configuration utility to lockdown settings of your system's IE options and habits. I use it on my kids PC along with my firewall which prevents key words from being accessed on the net.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak/default.mspx